Vladimir Maksimenko, Latvia: “We had a competition, a selection to the team. And it motivated us!”

This year, the team will consist of eight men who’ll come to “Battle of the Nations”, almost all of them are experienced fighters, they participated in the Championship in the past. This time we will have one ethnic Latvian, Yanis. Local fighters do not like full contact sport much, they prefer studying history, reenactment without any connection to sport. In fact, the issue is also present in Russia. But now they begin to understand that the level of historicity is under constant control at “Battle of the Nations”, and it’s interesting there.

We plan to present a full-fledged five-member unit with two reserve men. I will participate in triathlon. We can not bring anyone else for duels. We have good fencers who can work at those speeds, but, unfortunately, they are unable to attend the event due to personal reasons.

When we went to Warsaw, for the first time, there were seven of us, we took no civil participants. Our participation was very good, we won three out of four fights in the “five vs five” category, after that we had to withdraw because of injuries and equipment failure. We defeated USA, Denmark, lost to Israel. Our last year’s participation in France was bad, though we had prepared well. Perhaps, it was difficult for us to be a part of the Baltic states team because there was no coherence with the Estonians. This year, being the captain, I did everything possible fo the training process to be good. I supervised training of all the fighters, the way they lived (we are all from the same city). In addition, we had a competition, a selection to the team. And it motivated us, because when you’re not sure whether you’ll enter the team, it encourages you to work. Our level has improved.

In addition, we spend a lot of time in the forge. I am a member of a club “Lubeck” and we make equipment for the whole team on our own, and half of armor used by Team Estonia is also of our production.

We want to meet with strong teams on the lists, namely Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. This means we’ll gain experience and get bright recollections, like “I fought in a five-member unit against Russia.” But they are all very strong and experienced National Teams.